A new technology is on the horizon that could make the burning of gas, oil and wood to heat homes obsolete: A new company called Project Exergy is developing a way to capture the waste heat from computing to keep our houses warm.

Nigeria's presidential election is the most hotly contested in the country since the end of military rule in 1999. Nigerian author Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani says the election is being fought online, where legions of paid staff are inundating sites with fabricated postings and comments.

The Cyberspace Administration of China debuted a new song celebrating what it says is the country's an achievement in innovation. This rousing anthem was written to celebrate China's recent moves to tighten its controls on the Internet — to improve it's so-called "Great Firewall".

Many new smart TVs use voice recognition to perform simple tasks. In order to do that, though, the TVs have to listen to their environment — and send everything they hear to company servers. That means even your most private conversations, if held in front of the TV, aren't so private after all.

It's a classic David and Goliath story, with a twist: An indie musician is wrangling with an Internet giant on behalf of indie artists everywhere. But Goliath in this case is Google, and the tech company is squirming a bit in this unaccustomed role. But maybe we all need to rethink how we value the music that animates our lives.

In Cuba, electronic communication can be tricky for people on the island trying to reach the outside world. It's not only daunting — but can be dangerous. Despite those obstacles, Cubans have found ingenious ways to make their voices heard.

Magnetic-stripe credit and debit cards are like catnip for hackers, who have been broken into retailers like Target and Home Depot and installed malicious software on their cash registers. Now, chip-based cards are becoming more common in the US and are expected to grow rapidly in the coming year. Then there's Apple Pay, a mobile payment system that eliminates cards entirely. Where is this all heading?

Net neutrality has been the battle cry of many people who fear that business interests will take over what they consider a public tool supporting freedom and democracy. The FCC chair has finally come around to that view. His newly-announced plan, though, may not end the battle over control of the Internet.

Energy-saving, environmentally friendly devices are starting to work their way into the consumer market, and many were on display at this year's Consumer Electronics Shows. But to make sure they sell, their manufacturers are leaving the efficiency out of their sales pitches.

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06/06/2014 - 12:15pm

When the New York Police Department encouraged its followers on Twitter to share photos of themselves with NYPD officers, the result was not what they expected. Two days later, the hashtag has been mimicked in a half dozen cities around the world to showcase police brutality. But the social media effort has had another consequence: it has started a global dialogue about the perception of police and policing in different cities.

Despite her better judgment, New York-based Russian writer Anya Ulinich uses the web to seek out potential mates. She finds it all but impossible to interpret the profiles of American men, and they don't understand her any better.

This isn't your granddad's gambling industry: As casinos spread and habits change, slot machines have become a massive part of casino profits — as much as 85 percent. They're doing so partly by giving gamblers the illusion of winning, even when they're falling behind.

It's hard to be an entrepreneur in France these days, what with government regulation and a French attitude that failure is just bad form. So some French entrepreneurs are settling in Silicon Valley and bringing their French style with them.

Philip Seymour Hoffman is a leading actor in The Hunger Games film trilogy— and he wasn't finished filming the final movie when he died of a drug overdose a month ago. So filmmakers plan to use computer animation to complete his role. It won't be easy.

The Cyberspace Administration of China debuted a new song celebrating what it says is the country's an achievement in innovation. This rousing anthem was written to celebrate China's recent moves to tighten its controls on the Internet — to improve it's so-called "Great Firewall".

Famed Renaissance artist Leonardo Da Vinci detailed a design for a new instrument in his Codex Altanticus. But it never moved beyond his sketchbook. Now, more than 500 years later Polish pianist Slawomir Zubrzycki has built and played the inventor's viola organista.

In the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations, Russia's intelligence agencies see a new opportunity to increase electronic surveillance of ordinary Russians. What's odd is that Russians don't seem to care.

British chemist Anthony England was at home with plenty of time on his hands during the Ebola outbreak, reading the ongoing coverage and reactions. But the errors he found online infuriated him, leading him to make a satirical Ebola map that's gone viral around the world.

What do you do after you've danced on treadmills and filmed with huge contraptions to create viral hits? Bust out a drone and some unicycles and make another one. That's what Chicago band OK Go did, and the results are stunning.

Humans speak 6,000 languages, but half of them will disappear within the next 50 years. Even today, some ancient tongues have only one remaining speaker. The new PBS film, "Language Matters," looks at the languages that are struggling to survive.

You've seen the new iPhone 6. You want one. You buy one. So what do you do with your old iPhone to make sure it doesn't end up in some e-waste toxic pile in West Africa? We've got a few recommendations from an e-waste expert.

Google is the most popular search engine in the world, but can it solve one of history's most intractable problems? A new ad from the company's India branch shows how two friends, divided by the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan, were reunited... with a little help from Google Search.

Modern war isn't always fought on a physical battlefield, and the US Army is making new moves to try and keep hackers and cyber attacks away from its computers. Yet some of these vital battles are being fought by young men and women who are new to the field themselves.

The Soccket is a soccer ball with a twist — a generator inside that turns kicks into power that can run a small lamp. Its American inventors and celebrity backers say it provides hours of light so poor children in homes without electricity can study at night. But this bright idea has run into some technical problems.